Friday Trivia

I am a curious person and often wonder about things, strange things. . . one question I have pondered was "what happened to all the rubble in Berlin after World War Two".   You may wonder why - well, I have read many books on WWII and and one thing led to another.  FINALLY I know the answer and I was sort of exciting about sharing it.  

Teufelsberg

The Devils Mountain

The mountain rises 80 metres above the city and is completely man-made.  It was built by the Allies from the rubble of Berlin during the following twenty years as the city was rebuilt. One estimate for the amount of rubble is about 12 million cubic meters, or about 400,000 buildings. It is higher than the highest natural hill (the Kreuzberg) in the Berlin area.

Once completed the Allies used the hill to build a Listening Station (white tower at back of photo) to spy on East Germany.  Up to 1,500 were employed at the Listening Station at the height of the cold war.  Now it sits in ruin as Berliners decide what to next with the Station.

And here is another interesting fact about the rebuilding of Berlin - the Trümmerfrauen, or rubble women - these German women not only tended the wounded, buried the dead and salvaged belongings they also began the grueling task of rebuilding war-torn Germany by clearing the country's cities of an estimated 400 million cubic meters of debris, using only basic tools and, above all, their bare hands.  Just imagine how big the task must have looked - rebuilding an entire city by hand - after surviving years of war including starvation. 

~oOo~